Australian distributors outline local plans

Auckland visits by Australian heads of new distribution market entrants Digicor and Uptime Distribution have revealed more details of their strategies for New Zealand.

Digicor’s Melbourne-based national sales manager Richard Huang says increased technical expertise and local stock will help the channel here, while Uptime is offering to take on the task of building New Zealand market share for vendors with a strong presence overseas.

According to Huang, some resellers were importing Digicor-represented brands, or similar products, at greater cost and with longer lead times. “Now they have a local distributor offering technical know how,” he says.

Huang points out that Digicor has more than 10 years’ experience in building complete systems and focusing on disk-based storage.

Local manager Craig Willis says freighting product from its Melbourne headquarters can add up to 30 percent more to a reseller’s costs. existing customers are very happy to have local stock available, he says.

A technical representative has now also joined Willis at Digicor’s new Auckland office.

Meanwhile, Uptime has begun a reseller-recruitment drive and used its Auckland visit to introduce partners to Mitel’s IP telephony range.

Uptime began its business in Australia two years ago on the back of Mitel’s need to expand there and has since signed up Expand Networks as well. The company wants to partner with vendors who have an international presence, to help increase market share in New Zealand.

“We invest in sales and technical resources so a vendor can hit the ground running,” says managing director Tony Geagea.

Geagea says Uptime often expands with vendors who acquire customers in new territories overseas.

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